IN BRIEF

Transportation News: Cars, Boats, Buses, Bikes

Published: June 22, 1997

New Jersey Transit has ordered 50 buses powered by natural gas for use on its commuter runs along Route 9. The buses will be part of a demonstration program using alternative fuels to cut pollution. One of the buses, ordered from Motor Coach Industries of Winnipeg, Manitoba, is to be delivered next summer and the other 49 by March 1999.

The Federal Department of Transportation has awarded $1.1 million to expand the park-and-ride facility at Exit 165 on the Garden State Parkway in Paramus.

The current lot, with 81 spaces, will be expanded to 149 spaces, and new lots with a total of 177 additional spaces will be built. The project will also include shelters for passengers waiting for buses, improved lighting and pedestrian overpasses connecting the lots.

Ferry service to Sandy Hook started operating on Thursday to take beachgoers from Staten Island, Wall Street, Brooklyn, Bayonne and Jersey City in the morning and returning in the afternoon, at $20 for the round trip.

The schedule for the service, to mid-September:

Departure from Mariner's Harbor, Staten Island, 9:15 A.M.; stop at Brady's Dock in Bayonne at 9:25;, arrival at Sandy Hook 10:15. Departure from Sandy Hook at 3 P.M., to Bayonne at 3:45 and back to Staten Island at 4 P.M.

Departure from Liberty State Park in Jersey City at 9:15 A.M.; arrival at Sandy Hook at 10. Departure from Sandy Hook at 3 P.M.; arrival at Liberty State Park at 3:45.

Departure from Wall Street Pier 11 at 11 A.M.; stop in Brooklyn at 11:15; arrival at Sandy Hook at noon. Departure from Sandy Hook at 5 P.M.; stop in Brooklyn at 5:45; return to Pier 11 at 6.

Information: (718) 815-7272.

The Essex County sheriff is cracking down on mountain bikes on South Mountain Reservation. Sheriff Armando Fontoura says the bicycles are tearing up hiking trails on the 2,047-acre preserve. Despite mountain biking's popularity in the reservation, the county Board of Freeholders has declined to lift a ban on biking in light of a Rutgers study that found it had hastened erosion.

Warnings have failed to discourage violators, the sheriff said, and last week he directed his officers to issue summonses carrying fines of $50 to $100. How to patrol? ''We are in the process of purchasing bikes ourselves,'' Sheriff Fontoura said.